Kirk Lovegrove & Company believes that the majority of its team should have significant, appropriate experience which can be used to provide the best possible advice to its clients. Most of our peers have a team shaped like a pyramid. They typically have one or two senior people at the top and many junior people below. Most of these have less than five years of experience in the business. At KLC the great majority of our team have twenty years or more experience in the oil & gas or energy industry. Their experience covers Strategy and M&A&D to finance and related disciplines. Our people are those who like to provide sound advice to clients and, at the appropriate time, to roll up their sleeves to get the job done.
Martin Lovegrove
Martin is co-founder and Chairman of KLC. He has spent 50 years in the global oil & gas business, specialising as an adviser since 1981. He has advised 120 clients on over 500 mandates, ranging from <US$20 million to over US$15 billion, covering 57 countries. He has also worked closely with companies in the areas of Corporate Strategy and Business Development.
In the 1970s he developed the Wood Mackenzie oil & gas service before joining the British National Oil Corporation. Since 1981, he has developed three advisory companies: ML Petroleum Services, sold to James Capel in 1983; Lovegrove & Associates, sold to CIBC World markets in 1996; and Harrison Lovegrove & Co., sold to Standard Chartered Bank in 2007. He was Chairman of Global Energy for Citigroup between 2011 and 2013. During this time, he was also on the Advisory Board of Mubadala Petroleum.
In 2013, Martin was awarded the Oil Council’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Between 2013 and 2018 he worked as Special Advisor for Corporate Business Development to Chevron Corporation.
Niels Kirk
Niels is co-founder and Chief Executive of KLC. He has spent 32 years in Banking, initially focusing on structured finance, foreign exchange/derivatives and commodity trade finance. In 1991 he joined Citibank NA and since that time has focused on Corporate Banking for specialized, capital intensive industries, namely: Energy (oil & gas); Power & Utilities; Chemicals; and Metals & Mining. Additionally, from 2009 to 2011 he managed Citibank’s Strategic Capital & Corporate Finance Group in EMEA. Niels was Chairman and MD of Citibank’s EMEA Energy & Natural Resources Group up to 2018.
He also established Citigroup’s Climate Council purposed to create innovative financial products and solutions to meet clients’ and its sustainability challenges. In 2018, Niels became a Non-Executive Director of Subsea 7 S.A. and is a former member of the Advisory Board of Advanced Power.
Martin Copeland
Martin is a Principal of KLC. He has 30 years of Investment Banking experience focused on the Energy industry across its sub-sectors at Deutsche Bank, UBS, Evercore and most recently as Head of EMEA Energy at RBC Capital Markets. Martin’s experience and transaction track record spans both public and private M&A as well as both debt and equity capital raisings across Upstream, Midstream and Downstream as well as the Oilfield Services sector. Most recently Martin was also instrumental in establishing an Energy Transition coverage practice for RBC in Europe.
Michael Bridden
Michael is a Principal of KLC. He has a range of technical, commercial and project management skills in both the oil & gas industry and finance. He is a geologist, staring business life working for RTZ Oil & Gas in 1981 and then BP where he was a Senior Business Analyst in the Strategic Business Development Group. In 1994, he joined British Borneo Oil & Gas as head of Portfolio Management. In 2000, he joined Harrison Lovegrove & Co, playing a significant role in project execution, evaluations and building and running the firm’s research capabilities. HLC was sold to Standard Chartered Bank in 2007 and Michael initially continued these roles there. Later he became responsible for all technical evaluation of the Bank’s lending to upstream clients and for structuring appropriate financings.
Jim Peterkin
Jim is a Principal of KLC. He has 30 years of investment banking in the energy industry, including in upstream, midstream and downstream sub-sectors, as well as in energy transition. Before joining KLC, Jim worked at Barclays, Citigroup, Schroders and most recently as the Head of Energy Investment Banking, EMEA for Credit Suisse. Jim has advised private companies, funds, listed companies, NOCs and governments on a wide variety of corporate finance transactions including acquisitions, disposals, IPOs, equity and bond financings and take private transactions, in particular the world’s largest IPO – of Saudi Aramco. At Credit Suisse he was responsible for all Energy coverage and transaction execution in EMEA and was Vice Chairman of the Investment Banking Committee for financing.
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Paul Dufays
Paul is a Director at KLC. He is an energy lawyer by training. After working with the legal firms Torys LLP, Herbert Smith and Leboeufs over ten years to 2007, Paul joined Harrison Lovegrove as Corporate Counsel. He handled the execution of the company’s sale to Standard Chartered Bank that year thereafter providing advice to oil & gas clients in the areas of M&A&D and the structuring of reserves-based lending facilities. This work was global, although he developed a focus in West Africa and the North Sea. In 2013, Paul joined Amni International Petroleum, a Nigerian indigenous oil company, as General Manager, Corporate Finance and Commercial where he managed debt fundraising, M&A activity, and hedging activities. In 2016, he was appointed Group Finance Manager of Energean Oil & Gas, where he managed the company’s loan facilities and its IPO preparations. Paul is involved in KLC’s energy transition advisory work and is involved in fundraising and M&A transactions for biofuels, biogas and geothermal businesses in Europe, Africa and Asia.
Irini Hughes
Irini has a petroleum engineering background and experience in business development, strategy, market analysis and commercial due diligence in the upstream oil & gas industry. She started her career in 2001 with Anadarko International as a production engineer for their assets in Algeria and in 2003 she joined Deloitte’s Petroleum Services Group and moved into financial modelling, consulting, IPO and M&A transaction support. In 2007, she moved back into the industry, first with PetroCanada and subsequently with Statoil, holding a wide range of roles within their strategy and business development units, including asset sales, acquisitions, country entries and heading up origination for many of Statoil’s African assets.
Brian Magos
Brian has extensive experience advising oil and gas corporates on strategic / transformative decisions such as capital structure optimization, financing M&A and development projects via asset-based finance and ratings advisory, amongst others. He has worked closely with senior management across the energy value chain to develop bespoke financing solutions that complement their corporate strategies. Prior to joining Kirk Lovegrove in 2019, Brian worked with Citibank since 2006. He worked both in their New York and London offices.
Varun Mathur
Varun has a strong track record of oil and gas advisory with extensive experience in leading the execution of various transactions including M&A&D, equity raises, IPOs and debt financings. He has advised on transactions for clients of various sizes across multiple geographies including Supermajors, NOCs, E&Ps, PE / PE-backed vehicles and Asian conglomerates across the Oil & Gas value chain. Prior to joining KLC in 2021, Varun worked with Martin Copeland at RBC since 2017 and has previously worked at NewAge, Societe Generale CIB and Accenture.
Max Timmerbeil
Prior to joining KLC, Max spent several years in natural resources investment banking, advising clients on M&A, debt and equity financing, both in private and public situations. He has worked intensively in frontier markets, executing transactions for NOCs and IOCs. His previous roles included working at Exotix Capital (London) and Merrill Lynch (New York).
Josh Kallos
Graduating with a master’s degree in chemistry, Josh joined KLC in November 2018 and supports all project work, including market data analysis, modelling and general research.
Yuan Long
Prior to joining Kirk Lovegrove as an Analyst in September 2021, Yuan graduated from Imperial College London with a master’s degree in Metals and Energy Finance. She previously worked at Schlumberger as a wireline field engineer since 2016 across China, Ethiopia and Gabon.
Mandy Dring
Mandy is the Office Manager for the London headquarters of Kirk Lovegrove. Her responsibilities include all finance operations, premises management, liaising with IT support, HR administration and managing most of the firm’s day-to-day supplier relationships. She is also involved in marketing activities and organising internal and client events. Mandy worked for Harrison Lovegrove & Co from 1999 to 2007, and joined Kirk Lovegrove in September 2020.
Debbie Barrett
Debbie is the Administrative & Marketing Assistant at Kirk Lovegrove. She runs the office reception, organises travel and entertainment, as well as client marketing events and activities. She also assists and fills in for Mandy with general office administration. Debbie joined Kirk Lovegrove in June 2021.